The first Linux I installed was RedHat 4.0, from a friend at work. I played with it a bit, then bought RedHat 4.1 from Cheapbytes, then got on the 0./.1/.2 treadmill for several years. When RedHat 8 came out, with no ".0" after, I sensed trouble ahead, didn't migrate to it, and began shopping for a new distribution.

At first I started thinking about silly things like "ease of maintenance" and such, wandering through Mandrake, Debian, etc, etc. Then I came to my senses and realized that this was supposed to be a hobby, and supposed to be fun. So I started again, looking for the geekiest distribution I could find, that still had a happy level of convenience.

I've been with Gentoo ever since. Oddly enough, it also gets a very good "ease of maintenance" score from me. Every now and then there's a rough patch, like expat or some of the gcc or X11 upgrades, but compared to a full "version upgrade" from other distributions, it's still not bad._________________.sigs waste space and bandwidth

Every six months, I updated Fedora via yum, this upgrade method is actually unsupported. It went well four or five times, but then it broke so hard that I didn't know where to start troubleshooting: KDE 4 was included too early, login needed two tries (maybe consolekit problem, but I didn't know back then), desktop visibly slow,...

I went looking for a rolling release distro and found gentoo. Apart from rolling release, I also like the stability (not that bleeding edge like Fedora, but not as old software as debian), and the assistance for merging config file changes with dispatch-conf. In Fedora, I manually version-controlled a copy of /etc via SVN!

I tried Kubuntu once, but it had a habit of nuking itself by auto-update, after six months not using it.

I had used SuSE a time or two, probably in 2004 or so, but I had not been bitten by the free software bug yet. I wiped it and reinstalled XP.
I started using Gentoo in 2005, and used it for a year or two, but I switched to Ubuntu at some point.
Somewhere are 2008 or possibly 2009, I started using Arch Linux instead of Ubuntu.
For the past couple of years I've also had a Gentoo box, but I still use Arch at the same time.

Start with several Win version and than friend show me Ubuntu in 2007 and than I try suse, fedora and arch. I was come accross with gentoo several times. I try to install it into VB but with no luck. Than I decide it to install on my notebook and join this forum._________________Sorry for my English. It's not my native language and I'm still learning it.

First linux I tried was Red Hat (4.2?), but I remained a Windows user until Mint 6. Since then I've used virtually every distro you can imagine. Became an Arch enthusiast around 2 years ago (still like it a lot), only recently (4-5 months ago) settling on Gentoo for daily use._________________Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers...

Before Gentoo I used winxp. I have started using Gentoo in December 2005 and never looked back.Gentoo is my first and only Linux love.Other distros are just annoying (compared to Gentoo), especially Debilian and it's offspring (*buntu) _________________"Dear Enemy: may the Lord hate you and all your kind, may you be turned orange in hue, and may your head fall off at an awkward moment."
"Linux is like a wigwam - no windows, no gates, apache inside..."

Started out with Red Hat in '97. Tried a few of the other distros that were around at the time. Ended up using Slackware for a lot of years before moving over to Gentoo in 2006. (Whoa. Time flies when you're having fun) I have looked at a couple of other distros in the intervening years, but have pretty much stuck with Gentoo.

started out with Slackware back somewhere in 1993 or 1994 as something just to play with. Used OS/2 predominantly until I started college, where it was nice to have a *nix dev box at home. Started taking Linux more seriously in 1996 when I bought a copy of Red Hat Linux off of Cheap bytes, bought the full boxed retail version of RHL 5.0 in 1997 as a way of supporting them and basically abandoned OS/2. By 1999, I realized that I was thrashing my RH installs with a combination of Rawhide RPMs as well as my own compiled software and that Red Hat just wasn't keeping up as fast as I'd like. Rather than continue with my mess, I created my own LFS-type system that I maintained until 2006, which, even with the likes of comfigure, was a bear to maintain and keep track of updates on, especially across different architectures.

Gentoo basically automated what I was doing before and with portage, if something isn't cutting edge enough for me (a bit ironic since I'm mostly stable), I'm free to hack my own ebuilds and have things maintained without much headache.

Started with Fedora Core 4 back 2003 I think. Was mainly playing around since then (OpenSuSE, Ubuntu, Debian) but always kept going back to Win (variety of reasons).

Finally, something around 2009 I think, started using Linux as my main OS, although still couldn't choose the proper distro:) Went through (again) OpenSuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian and probably a couple more which I can't remember.

Another milestone was about 2 years ago.. I've changed my job and started working (no just playing) with Linux on a daily basis and was really impressed with it's internals. Back then I was using CentOS (@work and @home), but my inner curiosity kept my diving deeper and deeper.. from then the path was short. Arch (half a year to get familiar with DIY distro + rolling release idea), and then, last autumn, Gentoo..

And.. what's left to say.. I'm still compiling:)_________________"If you are using Linux as a development platform, do not skip first learning administration and security. It is a foolish programmer indeed who is not master of his or her own computer"

I used some sort of BSD directly before i started using gentoo, that was back in 2002-2003 gentoo every day ever since_________________A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.

geez if you really want to go back - in high school we used to use a BASIC terminal that was connected via an accoustic coupler (you took the handpiece of a rotary dial telephone dialed the number of the "mainframe" (I guess) and then placed it into rubber cups so it could operate) - that was the 80's

For linux started off with damn small linux then tried a heap of other distros - finally settling on gentoo because it was recommended as a good 64bit platform for running boinc - haven't looked back since and wouldn't use anything else - for me gentoo is real linux_________________CIC1=CC=C(C2=N[C@@H](CC(OC(C)(C)C)=O)C3=NN=C(C)N3C4=C2C(C)=C(C)S4)C=C1

RH-5.1, first steps, steep learning curve, not very happy until discovering there's more of Linux.
Debian all the way. Many years of fun, still a big fan of Debian. Hats off to Debian devs.
FreeBSD. Which is not Linux, but it's great in many ways. Can be installed as Gentoo, BTW. You install the base, set up the make.conf, rebuild the world, start installing apps. You'll get the feeling of good old UNIX.
Gentoo since 2004. IMHO there is nothing as Gentoo for an up-to-date desktop system. Don't get me wrong, Gentoo is also very viable option as a server platform.